VAR: What is it good for?

VAR is undoubtedly the hottest topic in football right now and with the wonderful and sometimes wrong decisions, it brings to football.

First Crystal Palace, Burnley and then Tottenham. All three of these clubs were the first to feel aggrieved by controversial decisions made by VAR this season.

Joel Ward was the first culprit to be dumbfounded by VAR on the third weekend of the 2020-21 Premier League season. During Palace’s game away at Everton, Lucas Digne fired a shot at goal but the ball hit Ward’s arm and was controversially given as a penalty, even though Ward’s arm was in a natural position.

Chris Wood and Burnley were then denied a penalty against Southampton, which left Sean Dyche furious.

The same happened with Eric Dier and Tottenham in their home game against Newcastle. Andy Carroll’s header struck the England defender’s arm in what looked to be a natural position when he was trying to block the Newcastle centre forward’s headed attempt at goal.

Arguably, the Premier League is the best league in the world, VAR is making a complete mockery out of the handball rule and because of this, defenders are now attempting to block shots with their arms behind their back.

Some people, especially FIFA have forgotten the basic rule, where if a player deliberately intervenes with the ball with their arm or hand whilst it is still in play, it should then be given as handball and not the other way round. Also, when you slide tackle a player, your arm must be raised in order to avoid injury, this is a natural position.

Having a silly rule such as this means that defenders cannot do their job properly which is to help the goalkeeper out by blocking shots on goal from the opposing team.

Another issue on the handball rule, which Liverpool’s Joe Gomez cleverly pointed out after the Reds’ 1-1 draw with rivals Manchester City, is the fact that when the referee goes over to the VAR monitor, they watch it in slow motion, but everybody knows that the game is not played in slow motion, so how can you identify a handball decision by slowing the incident down?

This is where FIFA and VAR need to be more clear about how they implement the handball rule in professional football.

Another issue regarding VAR is the offside rule. The rule states that if any part of the player’s body is beyond the line of the opposition team’s defence when the ball is being passed to them, it is given as offside. With that said, you cannot score a goal with your hand, as was the case for Patrick Bamford. Leeds United were controversially denied a goal against Crystal Palace for offside.

As Bamford was trying to signal to Luke Ayling where to pass the ball, VAR saw that his arm was beyond the line of Crystal Palace’s defenders in the lead up to the goal, so it was ruled out for offside. However, you cannot score with your arm, so this proves that there is no logic whatsoever in this new offside rule.

FIFA really need to get to the issue of fixing VAR because, at the moment, it is taking the mockery out of the game. We all know that refereeing in football is one of the toughest jobs in sport, but that does not mean it should be defamed by incorrect use of technology. Fans want to see football being played the right way, but at the moment, the use VAR is proving to be a hurdle in the way of this happening.

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